'I think one of the things I've found about America is they love to pick their sides.'
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00:00So we've heard a lot about what Americans think about the election today, but what about Australians?
00:05I caught up with Aussie husband and wife James and Emily Snowball to get their perspective as Australians living in DC.
00:16I think one of the things I've found with America is they love to pick their side.
00:19So it starts with your high school teams and everyone's got a really strong sense of
00:25camaraderie with their high school team, then it moves through to college.
00:29And you see that especially as it gets through to the political level.
00:33People like to pick their sides and they defend them fiercely without sort of sometimes being
00:38willing to listen to the other side.
00:40So it's almost instead of actually listening to views and opinions, it's, this is my sports team.
00:46It's, yeah, it's instead of feeling political, it feels more like you're watching a game
00:51of, I don't know, basketball or football.
00:54I almost feel like it's a little bit more difficult for people to vote here in the U.S.
00:57and they don't make it as accessible as back home.
01:00I know back home we can often vote on the weekend, for example, and whilst they do open early voting here,
01:05I feel like it is quite hard to vote early, especially hearing from my work colleagues who are American citizens
01:10and they can vote just about actually getting to voting.
01:14And I guess a lot of people and even someone actually in my own lobby building at work didn't know how to vote.
01:21And she's been an American citizen for decades.
01:24So, you know, she wasn't aware of how to vote.
01:27I think that's the biggest thing is that it's still foreign to a lot of American citizens here.
01:32Whereas back home, it's very open.
01:34You know, you vote every few years.
01:36It's mandatory here.
01:37No one gets fined.
01:38No one gets fined if they don't vote.
01:41And I think that's a really, really big difference.
01:43It's quite polarised, it feels like at the moment.
01:46It's very much two big campaigns and two polarised sides of the U.S.,
01:52especially leading up to this election.
01:53It's started to get, especially in the wake of the last one,
01:58businesses are starting to board themselves up.
02:00They're starting to get a little bit worried about what could happen.
02:03In general, people are still going about day to day, but it has changed sort of the feeling a little bit.
02:08We're trying to avoid going into the main side of D.C. just because of how everything is feeling.
02:13But in general, it's still day to day activities,
02:16just with this sort of overbearing sense that something might happen.
02:22It feels like it's a production here.
02:24So in Australia, you'll go for maybe a month of campaigning, maybe a little bit more.
02:29But we've been watching a year long campaign living here at the moment.
02:34So it's always going.
02:36They're always talking somewhere.
02:38They're always doing something.
02:39The ads on TV, the ads on social media.
02:43And rather than talking about policies, and it seems especially strong with the two current campaigns,
02:49it's more so like a slander campaign.
02:52So neither of them have much to say about what they're actually going to do.
02:56You have to look quite hard to figure out what either party is promising.
03:01They're working really hard to focus on just bringing the other side down.
03:04And really, they're digging into that divide that I mentioned.
03:08So the two sports team idea, they're really trying to pull people onto their side
03:13and keep them there as just blind loyalists rather than thoughtful voters.
03:18Yeah, obviously can't vote as an Australian here at the moment in DC.
03:22But I'm just hopeful that whoever is picked to become the next president,
03:28it's just calm and friendly.
03:30And there's a nice handover between the two.
03:33And I'm hopeful that whoever the candidate is that wins will keep up with what they've promised
03:38and that it will actually help us moving forward living here in America as well.